...on elective feudalism

There seems to exist a pattern (especially online) where people arrange themselves into a dynamic of "Elective Feudalism" - opting into authoritarian dynamics and delegating control, rather than representation. This can only be called 'Elective' if certain conditions are met - otherwise it is just plain old feudalism.

To be clear - I did not invent Elective Feudalism, it is just something I have observed to be a viable dynamic.

What is Elective Feudalism?

  • Feudalism, but with freedom1
  • different from Federation

  • usually requires disembodiment or near-disembodiment in practice, or else coercion reigns.

    • e.g. online 'kingdoms' with pretty good privacy
    • if your physical body can be deanonymized and accessed, you can be coerced through threat of violence etc.
    • therefore you are no longer in an environment of 'Elective' Feudalism - just plain old feudalism :(

  • difficulty of creating a new kingdom must be reasonably low

    • otherwise, centralization occurs and corruption follows.

Under such circumstances, Elective Feudalism may better serve its participants than more easily corrupted systems like pop 'federation'2

What is Federation

  • an approximation of decentralized decision-making, whereby individual agency is passed upwards through layers of delegation to a central authority

    • This is done in pursuit of benevolent dictatorship, which is (in theory only) the second most optimal model of governance3
  • at each layer, the federal authority must reconcile the propsals of the collection of delegates beneath it, and then itself become a delegate into the next level of centralization
  • (opinion) less adaptable to marauding violence than feudal systems
  • somewhat functional for long-term decision making, unless corrupted

  • easy to corrupt if delegates can be accessed and coerced, however

    • 'Pop' Federation
    • e.g. USA model of governance

in governance

  • Don't get it twisted - if anybody 'invented' this in America, it was the Iroqois.

  • unfortunately, modern federal government is corrupt, basically everywhere.

    • that is not to say that it is inherently bad, or even net bad as compared to realistic alternatives.
    • it is just objectively not doing well
    • (opinion) the main reason is that delegates are easy to coerce, and constituents cannot easily swap away from a corrupt delegate.

in software

  • most people refer to 'federated' models of software without actually relating to the Iroqois (or even USG) model
  • lots of things in software are referred to as 'federated' but they are really just disparate systems with no scaled leadership mandate, or centralized execution upon that mandate.
examples of simply disparate systems

What is Feudalism?

  • a social outcome that seems to have originated in response to a very real threat of starvation and/or marauding violence
  • certainly problematic in meatspace, as it usually involves coercion and exploitation of feudal subjects

examples

  • Rent (the term 'Landlord' literally comes from feudalism)
  • Chicken farming4

What is Elective?

  • true (non-coercive) choice of leadership - from a multitude of options, including onesself

Examples

Betrayal

  • essential to implement the stated goal of voting
  • voting has more or less no consequence without some kind of algorithmic enforcement, which is unrealistic in most real world systems
  • instead, the ability to simply leave the kingdom whose leader fails to represent your interests would convey much greater power upon the individual
  • this may not be the case in meatspace, but it should be the case in cyberspace. We have the technology to create systems that empower individual choice, and bring about decentralization in practice more effectively - not just decentralization in theory.

Examples

  • Linux

    • Linus still gets the 'benevolent dictator' nod in my opinion, but we'll see if he ends up a villain as most do.

  • Ethereum (tech)

    • side chains that branch and feed back into main

  • Ethereum (leadership)

    • Consider the DAO fork. New kingdoms were established.
  • Gitlab (self-hosted layers of upstream origins)
  • bittorrent (trackers to trackers)
  • open source software in general

Induction

  1. consider the smallest possible digital kingdom: one person (you)

    • you live in a benevolent dicatorship (or else you are insane)6
    • note that at such quantum scale, Kof1 is quite similar to benevolent nongovernance, the (theoretical) optimum.

  2. your kingdom of 1 elects a benevolent dicator named "Dick"

    • becomes kingdom of 2
    • one king (Dick), one baron (you)

  3. Dick becomes non-benevolent

    • "we decided to sell your data after all"

  4. You leave (elective feudalism)

    • if you stay in Kingdom Dick against your will, that's just plain old feudalism

  5. GOTO 1)

    • become kingdom of 1 (therefore benevolent)
    • keep an eye out for good leaders to follow. Or don't, you're in charge.

Footnotes

1Usually I write uppercase FreedomTM with a cheeky trademark superscript, but in this case I actualy mean it. The Pirated version of Freedom is better.

2(not to be confused with the original Iroqois model, which is very cool and frankly should be above criticism by the likes of me even if it weren't)

3the first optimal model of governance is benevolent 'nongovernance' - or everybody just doing the right thing. It is unclear which is more likely - benevolent governance or benevolent nongovernance.

4https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

5don't listen to any billionaires that tell you to come live in their utopian crypto village subject to their benevolent rule. And definitely don't bring your kids.

6I've certainly spent some time in a non-benevolent kingdom of 1. Find a new kingdom.